Mood:
chillin'Now Playing: Earth Wind and Fire
Whoo Hoo!
We made it to Kara. The drive was approx. 5 1/2 hours but the road condition was considerably better than the other roads we had experienced. This road and the main road in Lome are just fine, it was only when you deviate from these main roads that the roads become more like a Motocross XGAMES ramp park.
We left about 7am yesterday in Bro. Max's 4x4 land rover. Leaving Lome was a neat experience. It was a saturday and saturday morning are when many Togolese "faire du sport" or exercise. There were lots of people running in the streets and some large groups running together for exercise. In addition to this was the regular beehive of traffic. Cars going every which way, often directly at us to avoid pot holes only to veer back into their own "lane" before colliding. I have to say I am used to this. You pretty much have to after the first day (Momma, one minute driving in traffic here and you'd never feel the need grab the safety rail in the passenger seat when you drive with me!) There are many downed trucks laden with goods coming or going (see pictures). But once we were essentially out of the big Capital city of Lome, traffic lightened and we could cruise off and on at about 100km/hr (60 mph). Honking at other drivers here is not an act of aggression like in the state, it is an essential form of communication. It can mean anything from "heads up" to "stay in your lane" to "move out of the way" but is rarely interpreted as a mean.
We traveled throgh several towns and villages but didn't stop until we got to Sotouboua. There we stopped at another Marianist house where they farmed a great deal of crops (vegetables, corn, mangos...) There was an engineer there who we will connect with again and possibly set up some projects with. Ted and I will be staying with them for several days in the near future and hopefully setting up some kind of micro-irrigation experimental system. There were lots of lizards basking in the hot sun. They would scurry away as soon as you came close. When we left, they gave us some fresh mango upon my request. They tasted amazing. I started eating on in the car after sanitizing it.
We continued on from there and made our way to Kara. We are about to go to Mass right now with the Marianist brothers so I will write about Kara later.
